Friends of the UNCG Libraries

If you haven't done so, check out, purchase, or pull out a copy of Kwame Alexander's novel, The Crossover .  Alexander will visit UNC Greensboro and Bookmarks in September, and some of you will get to meet him.  You might think the book, which won the Newbery Award as the best in children's literature this past year, is a novel in verse for young people about basketball, but it's a lot more than that. As one observer writes, "You don't have to be a basketball fan to feel the exhilaration of a game well played in Kwame Alexander's novel.  You don't have to be a poetry fan either to appreciate the verve and variety of his verse, but chances are, after reading this book, you'll become one." As fellow author Ashley Bryan writes " The Crossover crosses over as gift to all ages." A sample of the poetry of The Crossover (click on the image to enlarge it) Don't miss the opportunity. Experience The Crossover and meet Kwame Ale...

Who: North Carolina Poet Laureate Shelby Stephenson  When: 4 p.m. on Thursday, October 8 Where: Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives Reading Room in Jackson Library at UNCG.   The event is free and open to the public. A book signing will follow the program. Shelby Stephenson, who was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame in 2014, lives on the small farm where he was born near Benson, in the Coastal Plain of North Carolina. “Most of my poems come out of that background,” he says, “where memory and imagination play on one another.” Perhaps Margaret Maron, Stephenson’s cousin, described him best when she wrote the following, included in the program for his induction into the NC Literary Hall of Fame: http://ncartseveryday.org/2015/02/my-cousin-shelby-stephenson/ . Educated at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he is professor emeritus ...

Monday, March 24, 4 PM Martha Blakeney Hodges Reading Room, 2nd floor, Jackson Library. Free and open to the public .   Terry L. Kennedy photo by Jan Hensley  UNCG poet Terry L. Kennedy will read from his debut collection New River Breakdown . Terry is the author of the limited edition chapbook, Until the Clouds Shatter the Light That Plates Our Lives , selected by Thomas Lux for Jeanne Duval Editions of Atlanta, GA. His work appears in numerous literary journals and magazines including Cave Wall, from the Fishouse, Southern Review , and Waccamaw , and has been honored with a Randall Jarrell Fellowship as well as fellowships to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He currently serves as the Associate Director of Graduate Program in Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is Editor of the online journal storySouth .

When native Georgian Kathryn Stripling Byer came to UNCG to embark on her MFA in Creative Writing, she recalls being somewhat anxious in the presence of those who became her teachers, and her father was somewhat suspicious of his daughter going so far away. Byer is now a poet deeply rooted in North Carolina, having adopted the state as her home years ago.   On April 10 at 4 p.m. in the Hodges Reading Room on the second floor of Jackson Library, she will return to UNCG as one of the luminaries of American poetry to discuss and read from her new book Descent .  The event is free and open to the public. Of UNCG, Byer said upon her recent induction into the NC Literary Hall of Fame, “I realized I was where I needed to be, surrounded by mentors like Robert Watson, Fred Chappell, and the venerable Allan Tate, not to mention the young writers who became my friends.  William Pitt Root, Bertha Harris, Patricia Peters, Lawrence Judson Reynolds, Kelly Cherry, to name a few...

The state of North Carolina has a proud heritage of Poets Laureate, including two poets closely associated with UNC Greensboro, Fred Chappell and Kathryn Stripling Byer.  So it is with special pleasure that the University Libraries and the Friends of the UNCG Libraries welcome Joseph Bathanti, who was named the new Poet Laureate on August 30, 2012.  He will appear at the Hodges Reading Room in Jackson Library at 4 p.m. on March 20.  Admission is free. “Joseph Bathanti is an award-winning poet and novelist with a robust commitment to social causes. He first came to North Carolina to work in the VISTA program and has taught writing workshops in prisons for 35 years,” Governor Bev Perdue said in announcing the selection last fall. “As North Carolina’s new Poet Laureate he plans to work with veterans to share their stories through poetry — a valuable and generous project.”  That project dovetails nicely with the Betty Carter Women Veterans Historical Project in the...

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